Akairo Hoshi
Bruning brighter than the stars is a soul that fell into the blacks flames, only to be reborn from the ashes. Appearance In his unreleased form, Akairo looks to be a young boy in his teens with long violet hair that goes down to frame his face, which looks slightly young and childish, and clear blue eyes. He wears black full body suit that is covered by some orange armor on his chest, with shoulder armor. The chest armor has a violet gem on the right side of it, which is actually where his Hollow hole is located at. He also wears orange finger-less gloves that extend a bit beyond his wrists, and some orange boots. On his forehead, he wears a small golden tiara. However, upon releasing, he tends to look more older, as even his voice deepens. He grows taller and his hair grows a bit longer, and his face appears to mature a bit, making him appear to be a young man. Personality Similar to his appearance, his personality also differs from his two forms. In his unreleased form, Akairo tends to be rather child-like and a hothead. He can be nice to others in this form, but will be rather quick-tempered and easily misunderstood as a simple child. If someone ticks him off, he will either throw a fit, or want to fight them and beat them up for makign him angry, most likely the latter. This makes him rather loud and obnoxious. He's also a bit of a pervert, where he tends to always check out any girls that he sees and rate them on their appearace as well as their clothing. He's very blunt about his opinions and won't hesitate to call a girl 'flat' if he sees a girl with no chest. From that, he developed a perversion for Arrancar girls like Halibel or Mila Rose, due to them having an ample bosom. However, due to this child-like persona, he is also very protective of anyone that he cares about and will not hesitate to take anyone down that harms them, going as far as to kill them even. This makes him quite ruthless in that manner. This follows even in his released state, if not more ruthless than the last. In his released form, he tends to be more quiet and serious about things, and caring only to take down an enemy that stands before him. His calm composure is a huge contrast to his unreleased self, making him more dangerous if one were to underestimate him. History Human Life Akairo was born in a clan from feudal Japan that served the Sanada clan, under the name Kasai Shiyōnin, meaning fire servant. As a young boy, he was trained by the others to be an honorable samurai and fight for honor of the Sanada name, and from them, the Takeda. He even befriended a young Sanada Yukimura, originally known as Sanada Nobushige. However, eventually, the Takeda clan gets wiped out by the Oda clan and Kasai is forced to serve them along with the Sanadas. After teh Oda clan fell, the Sanadas with Kasai allied itself with the highest power, the Toyotomi clan, where they found solace. After the death of Hideyoshi, Yukimura allied himself with the western army, and Kasai followed after him. However, in the great battle of the Osaka castle, where they were greatly outnumbered by the Tokugawa forces. Kasai fell from the blade of the enemy as he slowly watched his friend and master Yukimura recieve a great injury, and then struck down. Kasai engraved the last words Yukimura spoke before dying into his mind, before perishing himself. "Go on, take my head as your trophy." As a Soul After dying, Kasai became a Plus Soul and wandered the land of the rising sun on his own for a long time. He was ashamed of being incapable of protecting his friend and how he had let his honor crumble. From then on, the guilt and anger began to slowly consume him, along with the Chain of Fate. Any other passing by souls or any spiritually aware being that would try to talk to him, would only be turned away, from Kasai not desiring to speak with anyone. After a long time, the Shinigami finally appearaed before him, but before they could purify him, the Chain of Fate was completely gone, and Kasai transformed into a Hollow before their eyes. His rage and anger that arose from his shame fueled his pwoers and allowed him to kill and devour the Shinigami that came to purify him and send him to Soul Society. From then on, Kasai was no longer Kasai, but a Hollow. As a Hollow Due to the destructive nature of a Hollow, Kasai began to devour more and more souls from then on, and even more Shinigami that ever got in its way, not stopping until it consumed enough to fill the void in his heart, which would never go away. Eventually, his power and his hunger grew, that he felt that human souls were no longer satisfactory. He began to devour other Hollows it met, which was more appeasing for its hunger than huamn souls. And so from then on, he began devouring more and more Hollows. The amount of souls that he began consuming also began to grow from each Hollow. The souls devoured eventually began to mingle together and soon they overwhelmed Kasai's soul and transformed him into a Menos Grande, and more specifically, a Gillian. However, despite the collection of souls, Kasai's soul managed to overwhelm all the other souls and become the dominant soul, before he slowly began to feed on the other Gillians again like he did before with other Hollows, and it resulting with him evolving even further, in an Adjuchas. When he transformed into the Adjuchas, he regained his form of conscious and could fully focus a bit more again. From that conscious, Kasai abandoned the name he was given before, believing himself to be unworthy of it, and went on by a new name from then on. He named himself Akairo Hoshi. As an Adjuchas His Adjuchas form was that of a red phoenix that roamed the desert of Hueco Mundo, devouring other Hollows to prevent himself from regressing to a Gillian. Many times, he considered allowing himself to be devoued, or just allowing himself to regress to a Gillian, but every time he tried to, he always found himself end up devouring more Hollows and fighting back against any Hollows that attempted to devour him. Deciding that perhaps he couldn't allow himself to go down without a fight from his honor as a former samurai, Kasai, or rather Akairo, continued to wander about Hueco Mundo. Many other Hollows tracked him to ask him to join Barragan's army, but Akairo adamantly refused, believing Barragan to be just as bad as when he was forced to serve the Oda clan as a human, the result ended up with him needing to fight for his life more times than one. After hearing about the army that Aizen began creating by making artificial Arrancars from exposing Hollows to the Hogyoku, Akairo considered joining, remembering how it was being with Yukimura serving under Hideyoshi, and the kindness he was showed. He decided to join. From the exposure to the Hogyoku, the mask of his Adjuchas form shattered and from that, he became an Arrancar with access to more power than from being a natural formed Arrancar. The Zanpakuto he created however held so much of his power, that he wasn't able to look his true age, but rather a young teenage boy, and with an attitude to match. Arrancar Life At first, Akairo was going to willingly follow Aizen, and fight against Soul Society, but he then began to realize the true intentions of Aizen, and the way he looked at them all. It wasn't a leader taht believed in his followers, or one that would be showing true kindness from a righteous path, but one of an expendable puppets that would be only used to further one's own ambitions. While the other Arrancar's might have known this and still followed him for his strength, Akairo didn't, and instead, chose to run away from Las Noches and no longer participate in the winter war. However, after Aizen's defeat, Akairo returned to Las Noches and decided to join in as a defender of Hueco Mundo. He decided to join up with Grimmjow Jeagerjaques as his Fraccion. He tends to act like an annoying little brother with Grimmjow though. Powers and Abilities Adept Spearsman: '''The primary weapon that Akairo uses in both forms is his spear, so he is rather skill in the art, and is able to use it to attack enemies while keeping his distance. The weapon he carries can be used to block attacks and parry them for his counterattack. Even if he doesn't use the blade, he can make jabs or strikes on the opponent with the rest of the spear. '''Cero: As an Arrancar, Akairo is capable of firing a Cero from the blade of his spear at the opponent. His Cero's color is violet. Bala: '''Akairo is able to fire red Bala blasts of his fists by strikign in a punching manner. They are strong enough to shatter boulders. '''Hierro: Like all Arrancar, Akairo possesses the natural ability known as Hierro. This allows him to take hits from attacks from others and from striking objects without taking much, if any, damage. Sonído: Akairo is able to use Sonido to maneuver in battle, to catch opponents off guard and strike them before they can react. Descorrer: A technique used by Espada-level Arrancar and sometimes others, to open a Garganta between the living world and Hueco Mundo. Akairo is skilled enough to be able to create one for himself, but usually never uses it. Zanpakutō Fénix Carmesí (深紅フェニックス, Crimson Phoenix): Unlike most Zanpakuto, his doesn't take the form of a sword, but is instead a spear with a golden body and a blade at the top. There's a smaller blade sticking out of the bottom of the main blade. 'Resurrección: '''His release command is Burn for all Eternity, referring to how a phoenix forever burns itself to ashes only to be reborn. To release his Zanpakuto, Akairo spins the spear above his head with both hands and then strikes the ground with the blade end of the spear. From the ground, flames made of his spirit energy erupts from the ground in high volumes and engulfs Akairo with it, creating tremendous heat in the area around him. The flames continue to emerge and soon take the shape of a flmaing phoenix that lets out a great cry, before it slowly growing smaller and smaller, until it takes the shape of something more humanoid, which is Akairo's released form. His appearance is greatly different from his previous form, no longer being a child form, and now into a young man with red armor covering him all over. The breastplate now has two small blue crystals that shape around the chest, and extended shoulder armor. He also has a red helmet that is the shape of a phoenix head that is the form of his Hollow mask. On his back, he has two large orange colored wings that enable him to fly. Along with this, his spear also takes a new form of a javelin to battle with, similar to other Arrancars that have a weapon upon releasing. His new weapon is similar to his old spear, except it now has three blades, instead of the two from before, and has another blade at the other end of it. Tormenta Vórtice Llama Spinning the spear around in front of him, Akairo can form powerful flames that form a vortex around to envelop and burn the target from within the flaming vortex. Akairo can also fly through the vortex and attack the opponent himself as well. Infierno Atómico Charging his fists with flames, Akairo does a large barrage of punches at high speed, and sends a hundreds of flaming fireballs at the opponent which explode upon contact. Due to that, if the fireballs hit something before reaching the target, they immediately explode. Ardiente Ave Fénix Enveloping himself completely in flames, Akairo takes the shape of a fmaing phoenix, wimilar to when he first releases, and then let's out a phoenix cry before charging the opponent at high speed and incinerate the target, as well as pierce through them. Statistics Relationships Grimmjow Jeagerjaques: Akairo serves Grimmjow as his Fraccion, but acts more like a little brother to him. The two seemed to have a harsh relationship, but its very close to being a sibling-like relationship. Akairo might act like Grimmjow is a jerk that should get over his man crush of Ichigo, but is exceptionally loyal to him and is willing to do whatever it takes to protect him. Akairo is capable of getting really pissed when one insults Grimmjow, and is even willing to attack them, despite the risks, like when he attacked Byakuya because the latter insulted Grimmjow. Character Threads Trivia *Akairo's forms from both unreleased and released are from the character Mushra from Shinzo. *Akairo's Adjucha form is from the bit-beast Dranzer from Beyblade. Quotes *(To Grimmjow) ''"No matter what happens... Grimmjow... I'm never gonna stop walking right behind you... even if you run to the ends of the earth, I'll chase after you... because that's my duty as your Fraccion... don't like it... you'd better kill me since I'm never gonna change this part of me for all of eternity..." *(To Grimmjow about himself) ''"Hey Grimmjow... there's a story I once heard... about a man that pledged to serve a man that was his master... the servant swore that no matter what happens, he'd protect his master to the bitter end... he became not only his loyal servant, but also his trusted friend... however, even the day came when he and his master would have to go into battle against enemies... and in the ensuing fight... the servant was slayed right before his master was slayed as well... The point of the story is this... the servant was willing to do whatever it takes to protect his master and friend... so that's what I intend to do with you, Grimmjow... as your Fraccion..." ''